Israel’s inroads into the African continent are not based on goodwill or anything that is genuinely beneficial to the Motherland. It is strategically based on expanding influence in the region and its relationships with Arab nations. And, it is not a new strategy.
Yotam Gidron’s captivating read, “Israel in Africa: Security, Migration, Interstate Politics,” analyzes the relatively short history of Israel’s interests in Africa. Gidron notes that Israel’s interest forms a broader part of a diplomatic effort that includes “blocking Palestine’s pursuit of international recognition.”
Even though the scale of Israeli-African engagements continues to receive scant media coverage, Gidron’s 2020 book reveals how contemporary African and Middle Eastern politics interact and impact one another.
Gidron is a researcher with a Ph.D. in African Studies from Durham University, who focuses on migration, state-society relations, and popular culture in Africa and Israel.
In his book’s introduction, he writes that Israel “has often sought to project its influence into the continent (Africa)—far beyond its immediate (Arab) neighbors—in order to safeguard its interests and undermine its adversaries.”
An example of these inroads into Africa dates back several decades.
In 1956, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the Polish-born founder of modern-day Israel, appointed Russian-born Golda Meir as foreign minister, a position she held for nearly a decade. Meir would go on to become the Israeli politician most strongly associated with Africa.
To contextualize that relationship, in his book, Gidron cites the late Meir, who later became prime minister. In her autobiography, she explains her country’s budding relationship with Africa’s newly formed post-colonial independent states.
She wrote, “Like them, we had to learn for ourselves how to reclaim the land … how to live together and how to defend ourselves.” However, unlike African nations that were throwing off the yoke of European colonialism, modern-day Israel was established by commandeering the land of the Palestinian people and expelling them.
Over the years, Israel has provided military arms and equipment to African nations to help solidify its influence. Concerning Israel’s relationship with Sudan, at the time Africa’s largest nation state.
Israel “understood that the war in Sudan (between the North and South) represented a golden opportunity for quelling the tensions between Africans and Arabs, something that could only strengthen Israel in the international sphere,” explained Gidron. Israel’s interference in those tensions included supplying arms.
In the 1960s, with the approval of then-Prime Minister Meir, the Israeli Mossad led a covert operation that involved airdropping arms and humanitarian aid inside the headquarters of the southern Sudanese rebel group Anya-Nya and training its members in guerrilla warfare.
Gidron explained that Israel’s relationship with Africa, “should be understood as driven by the same rationale: in Africa, Israel repeatedly sought political and military alliances or influence that can be leveraged to pressure, weaken, undermine and deter its rivals in the Middle East.”
Israel’s influence in the U.S. has also been a hallmark of its seeming invincibility in the region. “For decades, Israel has managed to access unparalleled American political and financial support, not only because of its existence and prowess, which is said to be advancing American geostrategic interest in the Middle East.
But also because of the effective lobbying efforts and political influence of American pro-Israel groups, both Jewish and evangelical Christian,” noted Gidron.
Much of Israel’s leverage with Africa comes from Washington rather than Jerusalem, as Israel and various American pro-Israel groups serve as intermediaries that facilitate access to American support by trying to influence U.S. foreign policy strategy, Gidron explained.
Additionally, Israel wields significant influence with U.S.-based evangelical Christians and is also flexing that influence in Africa. Israeli diplomats and politicians have been featured as guests in evangelical pro-Israel conferences across Africa, noted Gidron.
And with the rise of born-again Christianity in Africa, “Israeli government officials warmly welcome high-profile African pastors when they visit Israel/Palestine on pilgrimage tours,” Gidron continues.
According to Gidron, “Israeli officials warmly welcome high-profile African pastors when they visit Israel/Palestine on pilgrimage tours. The evangelical theological justifications for support for Israel mean little to Jewish Israelis.
And diplomats also often stress the importance of establishing Israel’s image in Africa as a modern, tech-savvy nation and not only as the ancient Holy Land many Africans know from the Bible.”
He continues, “And yet the pro-Israel messages evangelicals promote, their suspicions of Islam, their urge to express unconditional support for Israeli policies and their expanding influence on public life in many parts of Africa render them invaluable allies of the Jewish state.”
Israel’s goals over the past decades have been to continue undermining the growing support for the Palestinian cause, and Africa is a key, even today.
A June 6 article titled “Israel’s expanding shadow in Africa’s Great Game,” published on The Cradle, an online news magazine covering the geopolitics of West Asia from within the region, was pointed in its analysis of the situation.
“Behind the rhetoric of development and partnership, Tel Aviv’s African campaign is an extension of its settler-colonial project: to dismantle historic solidarities with Palestine, secure strategic footholds in a resource-rich continent, and weaponize African states in service of western and Zionist agendas.” Follow Jehron Muhammad @africawatchfcn on X.